ICWA Weekly News 9-27-23
The Medical Liberty Pledge launches with 17 Washington Politicians; DOH Mortality Data update - kinda sorta; County parties pass Medical Freedom Resolution; and Dr. Turner speaks to FLCCC audience.
By Gerald Braude and ICWA volunteers
In this issue:
Radio Show links
Seventeen from Washington Sign the Medical Liberty Pledge
2021 All-Cause Mortality Data Surfaces on DOH Site
DOH Dishes Out More False Information
Clark & Pierce County Republicans Adopt Medical Freedom Resolution
Washington’s Dr. Turner Participates in FLCCC Roundtable
September 22 Episode of An Informed Life Radio - show links
De-Prescribe + De-EMF
Guests: Kim Witczak, Eric Windheim, Laura Markwardt
Home Biome – Avoid toxins in the home
Industry funding and self-censorship: how many bite the hand that feeds them? | The BMJ
FEMA and FCC Plan Nationwide Emergency Alert Test for Oct. 4, 2023 | FEMA.gov
The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body's Fear Response by Ellen Vora
Seventeen from Washington Sign the Medical Liberty Pledge
After much anticipation, the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) has made public the names of those who have signed the Medical Liberty Pledge, which, at the time of this publication numbered 336.
The pledge, intended for lawmakers and candidates of elected offices, simply states:
I hereby pledge that as an elected official I will oppose any government action and repeal/veto any law that would coerce or require any American to acquiesce to a medical product or procedure.
The Medical Liberty Pledge was launched publicly with some fanfare during Episode 337 of The Highwire [7:40] after more than a year of quietly collecting 250 key politician signatures. The Highwire segment explains the importance of this pledge, which is also part of ICANLegislate, the new 501(c)4 arm of the Informed Consent Action Network (ICANDecide).
The driving force behind the pledge is Aaron Siri, of Siri & Glimstad, arguably the most effective legal firm in health freedom, who said “This is a natural outgrowth, outcropping of what ICAN does.”
The show’s host Del Bigtree further explained, “Anyone can go to a representative and say, if you want me to vote for you, you have to sign this pledge. This gives a reason to go to the door of your senator or assemblyman. This is a way of giving our leaders an ultimatum. I think Covid is great time for us to be putting forth a pledge like this.”
Aaron Siri explained why they proposed the pledge and some of its benefits:
“Sometimes, politicians are scared to stick their necks out on this because there’s a lot of pharma money and outside interests that don’t want parents to have their right to choose the medical procedures that their children or they themselves can get. So this allows those politicians to band together, such as some states that have had more than thirty who have signed the pledge. It allows legislators to lock arms together on this important fundamental, critical right to get a job, go to school, or participate in civil society. I am heartened that so many legislators around the country have signed this pledge and with this being done by hardly any publicity but by word of mouth, instead.”
Washington ranks sixth for the highest number of pledge signers at the time of this article. The top five are West Virginia (48), Arizona (35), Louisiana (33), Mississippi (30), and Michigan (22).
Eight of the seventeen elected officials in Washington who signed the Medical Liberty Pledge are current incumbents. Most are Republicans in partisan offices; three are in non-partisan offices: Karl Kanthak, Gabe Galbraith, and Kristina Soltys.
Washington incumbents who signed the Medical Liberty Pledge:
State House
Jim Walsh, representative from the 19th District
Cyndy Jacobsen, representative from the 25th District
County Commissioner
Richard Mahar, who represents District 1 in Skamania County
Richard Dahl, who represents District 3 in Cowlitz County
Amanda McKinney, who represents District 1 in Yakima County
City Council
Kristina Soltys, who represents Position One on the Covington City Council
Schoolboard
Karl Kanthak, Position 3 in the Mt. Pleasant School District as well an ICWA volunteer.
Gabe Galbraith, Position 2 in the Kennewick School District.
Candidates or past politicians who signed the Medical Liberty Pledge:
Eight signers of the pledge who are not currently or yet in office are Republicans, except for one non-partisan candidate.
Misipati (Semi) Bird is running for governor for the state of Washington.
Joe Kent is running again for election to the United States House to represent Washington’s 3rd Congressional District. He declared his candidacy for the primary scheduled on August 6, 2024. He won the Republican nomination for the same district in 2022 but lost in the general election to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez.
Jerrod Sessler is running for election to the United States House to represent Washington's 4th Congressional District. He declared candidacy for the primary scheduled on August 6, 2024.
Vicki Kraft was a member of the Washington House of Representatives, representing District 17-Position 1. She assumed office on January 9, 2017. She left office on January 9, 2023. She ran for election to the United States House to represent Washington's 3rd Congressional District. She lost in the primary on August 2, 2022.
Keith Swank ran for election to the United States House to represent Washington's 10th Congressional District. He lost in the general election on November 8, 2022 to Democrat Marilyn Strickland.
Leif Johnson is running again for election to the United States House to represent Washington's 2nd Congressional District. He declared his candidacy on August 5th.
Elizabeth Kreiselmaier ran for election to the United States House in 2022 to represent Washington's 6th Congressional District. She lost in the general election to Incumbent Democrat Derek Kilmer.
Sue Forde ran for election to the Washington House of Representatives in 2022 to represent District 24-Position 1. She lost in the general election to Democrat incumbent Mike Chapman.
Victoria Palmer ran as a nonpartisan for the Seattle City Council but lost in the primary election this past summer. Victoria is the leader of the Seattle Truth Network and works with many other groups advocating for change.
Incumbents and candidates are now openly invited to consider signing the Pledge. More politicians will have signed by the time you read this article.
2021 All-Cause Mortality Data Surfaces on a DOH Site
Ever since the rollout of the COVID-19 shots, there has been a public outcry about the sudden and drastic rise in all-cause mortality across the world. The reason all-cause mortality measurements are of interest is due to the dispute around how COVID-19 deaths have been recorded on death certificates and the need to look for unknown adverse effects of the new products used in the mass vaccination program. Comparing all-cause death data to expected or historical trends in death rates can tell us about the effectiveness of pandemic countermeasures. COVID-19 deaths, as recorded, do not sufficiently explain the death rates that were experienced in 2021 and 2022 while the so-called vaccines and boosters rolled out.
The latest report on this phenomenon came from a September 20 article in The Defender:
A new study of 17 countries found a “definite causal link” between peaks in all-cause mortality and the rapid rollouts of the COVID-19 vaccines and boosters.
Researchers with Canada-based Correlation Research in the Public Interest found more than half of the countries analyzed had no detectable rise in all-cause mortality after the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 — until after the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines and boosters.
They also found that all 17 countries, which make up 10.3% of the global population, had an unprecedented rise in all-cause mortality that corresponded directly to vaccine and booster rollouts.
While certain public health officials repeat the mantra “correlation doesn’t mean causation,” the degree of correlation is extremely high in this study, so the researchers took the mantra to the next logical level that “correlation should mean investigation.”
During Washington Board of Health (BOH) meetings, Be Brave Washington leader, Natalie Chavez, has instructed her members to read Cause Unknown: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022 by Edward Dowd, which is the most comprehensive book on sudden deaths in the United States.
The following excerpt from the introduction best summarizes the phenomenon:
By 2017, around 2.8 million Americans died. 2018 was about the same again. 2019, about the same again. Not surprisingly, 2020 saw a spike, smaller than you might imagine, some of which could be attributed to COVID and to initial treatment strategies that were not effective.
But then, in 2021, the stats people expected went off the rails. The CEO of the OneAmerica insurance company publicly disclosed that during the third and fourth quarters of 2021, death in people of working age (18-64) was 40% higher than it was before the pandemic. Significantly, the majority of the deaths were not attributed to COVID.
A 40% increase in deaths is literally earth-shaking, and not only for the devastated families and communities that directly experience the deaths. Even a 10% increase in excess deaths would have been a 1-in-200-year event. But this was 40%. And therein lies a story – a story that starts with obvious questions: What has caused this historic spike in deaths among younger people?
What has caused the shift from old people, who are expected to die, to younger people, who are expected to keep living? It isn’t COVID, of course, because we know that COVID is not a significant cause of death in young people.
Ever since these statistics started popping up, the obvious question has been whether there has been a rise in excess mortality after the rollout of the COVID-19 shots in Washington as well. An activist for ICWA did a public records request to the Washington Department of Health (DOH) to obtain 2021 data. On November 28, 2022, the DOH wrote back and stated that data for any of these measures are typically not available until six to eight months after the closeout of the calendar year. But for all of that following year of 2022, the DOH never made public the mortality data for 2021. As of today, the main DOH mortality table still only goes to 2020:
All-Cause Mortality - Age Adjusted Rate per 100,000 (Geography: State, Sex: All (Combined), Time Period: Single Year)
For the first eight months of 2023, the BOH received a barrage of criticisms for not being forthcoming with mortality data for 2021. ICWA volunteer Melissa Leady, who was one of those critics, has discovered a different source of DOH data that now includes 2021 deaths, titled ACH and State Dashboards:
The top row represents the total number of deaths for the state. The other rows breakdown each Accountable Communities of Health (ACH), a medicare-related reporting system enacted in 2015. The state must still be polishing up their reporting systems since the 2020 total in the main mortality table doesn’t incluede 2021 data yet, and shows 63,173, whereas the second table shows 63,177: a small difference of four deaths. We are left suspicious with the possibility of data manipulation, and certainly the lag in reporting.
When compared to other year-over-year increases, the rise in all deaths for the year 2020 was significant: An increase of 4,880 deaths between 2020 (63,177 deaths) and 2019 (58,297 deaths). One could argue that the deaths were COVID related in one form or another. For the rollout of the COVID-19 shots in 2021, the overriding propaganda campaign would lead one to expect the number of deaths to level off or go down. Instead, from 2020 to 2021, the number of deaths rose even higher by 5,572 (63,177 to 68,749).
The DOH certainly cannot blame “vaccine hesitancy” for these increases because, thanks to the Power of Providers initiative here in the state, Washington has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, as featured by the CDC.
As of November 10, 2021, 75.1% of all eligible people in Washington State are fully vaccinated compared to 58.5% in the U.S. overall. As COVID-19 vaccines became widely available, most of the state’s eligible residents were eager to get vaccinated and did so at mass vaccination clinics, events, hospital systems, and participating pharmacies. As demand waned, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) partnered with pharmacies and healthcare providers to reach out to communities through mobile vaccination clinics. Thus came the Power of Providers initiative, which was designed to mobilize healthcare providers to leverage their influence as trusted voices and encourage COVID-19 vaccinations during their routine patient encounters.
Curiously, the CDC reports different numbers of COVID and all-cause deaths than the WA DOH.
As much as the public is waiting for the DOH to release better mortality data for 2022 and 2023, the CDC already has done that for our state. The second column - Deaths from All Causes - shows that the increase in all cause mortality was considerably lower in 2022 compared to 2021 (69,191 minus 68,097=494). This could lead one to wonder whether this was due to the decrease in COVID-19 shots administered, for at the moment, only 25.6 percent of the Washington residents are up to date with their primary and bivalent booster shots.
DOH Dishes Out More False Information
While the Washington Department of Health (DOH) asks the Washington legislature for $35 million dollars to combat public misinformation on vaccines, they just sent out their latest unsubstantiated claim by way of their “Question of the Week.”
Inexplicably, the DOH did not cite the “clinical data” to substantiate this claim of effectiveness. Could it be because no clinical studies have been done to show that such a mixture is “effective,” much less safe? Now, if there is anyone on this planet, including those at the DOH, who can show that such clinical data does exist, those of us at Informed Choice Washington would very much like to see it.
Clark County Republicans Adopt Medical Freedom Resolution
The Clark County Republican Party adopted a resolution PROTECTING THE RIGHT TO INFORMED CONSENT, adding momentum to the idea first passed by the 17th and 18th Legislative District committees.
Clark County Today wrote that the resolution “affirms its support of individual informed consent when it comes to medical decisions, including medical procedures and products, and withholds funds from sitting lawmakers or candidates who do not hold those values.”
“This isn’t a case of forgive and forget,” Bob Runnells told Clark County Today. “We should never forget the government overreach that occurred during the pandemic. People shouldn’t have been coerced into taking the shots and people certainly shouldn’t have lost their jobs and businesses.”
This past legislative session, Runnells also assisted in writing and promoting Senate Bill 5596 and its companion House Bill 1610, both, titled “Restoring Trust in Public Health Through Consumer Protection.” The identical bills, when passed into law, would require all government employees and agencies to limit their promotional messages to the same claims manufacturers are held to, and would attempt to eliminate conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical suppliers. The bills were mostly sponsored by Republicans, but Runnells and his team were honored to have the chair of the House Consumer Protection, a Democrat, sign on to the bill.
“There needs to be structural change in how governments are allowed to deal with these situations,” Runnells said. “SB5596/HB1610 are filed to require our public health apparatus to simply tell the truth. These and other bills, like HB 1535 limiting government emergency powers, are not being given consideration by the majority party, even though laws and resolutions to prevent government overreach during emergencies are being passed in many other states. We are not seeing direct changes that we desire through the legislature.”
In breaking news, the Pierce County Republican Party has also passed the resolution, increasing it’s chances of being adopted at the state party level - thereby, sending a clearer message that Informed Consent should be reinforced through legislation.
Dr. Turner Participates in FLCCC Roundtable
As the chief plaintiff in the Turner et al. versus Washington Medical Commission (WMC) lawsuit, Dr. Michael Turner appeared on the September 20 Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) roundtable discussion alongside Dr. Pierre Kory and Dr. Meryl Nass.
Dr. Turner has a very impressive resume: he’s a graduate of Stanford University, Harvard Medical School, and has worked for the Mayo Clinic. He is an Integrative Medicine physician and CEO of his own national, concierge practice, serving Richland and the Tri-Cities area.
Dr. Turner first thanked the FLCCC for their protocols that helped so many of his patients with COVID-19.
“The only rational and appropriate thing to do was to pull out all the stops to help people improve, but unfortunately Washington state had a different opinion,” Dr. Turner said. “But basically, they are prosecuting me for providing early treatment: hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, which they have both defined as,” Turner holds up his hands in quotes, “below the standard of care.”
Dr. Turner then puts on the screen a slide of “COVID-19 Misinformation” policy letter from the Washington Medical Commission, which cites the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) and says the two treatments above do not meet the FDA’s and, therefore, the WMC’s standard of care.
Dr. Turner quotes the policy, “Providing this information erodes public trust.” He then comments, “The WMC has defined the standard of care as what the Food and Drug Administration has said.”
Dr. Kory quickly jumps in, saying, “That is one of the most common misleading and manipulative statements that not only the FDA uses, but also the CDC uses all the time. The CDC does not ever mention that the FDA does not have to approve it for COVID-19. After all, the FDA often champions off label drugs, especially for novel diseases. But here the CDC is constantly hammering at you that you have to have something FDA approved for COVID.”
Further on in the podcast, Dr. Turner provides the following snippets:
‘We're fighting for the soul of medicine right now. We are fighting to have a doctor-patient relationship free of influence from the CDC, the FDA, all these three letter organizations!"
‘We're up here taking a beating, but we're standing strong, we're not backing down. We're charging forward. We're going to make an example of ourselves to go out and get it done, because it's easy to look back in history and see these pivotal moments, the Civil Rights Movement, or Apartheid in South Africa, and we're living through that right now. This is our chance to stand up and make a difference... not only in our country, but worldwide.”
Pacific Northwest Events in October
On Monday Oct. 9th, WA BOH Meeting. Note the Different Time/Location – Wenatchee, 8 AM.
The Draft Agenda allows for public comment, the Chelan-Douglas BoH (Maybe Bill Sullivan?) will provide an update, and there will be a possible vote on Newborn Screening for GAMT & Arginase 1 deficiencies, based on Technical Advisory Committee recommendations.
Both deficiencies are admittedly considered rare inherited conditions, and they present with symptoms similar to vaccine injury (seizures) and “delays in both physical and cognitive development, loss of developmental milestones, and intellectual disabilities”. There is no such thing as a “genetic epidemic”, so we must be on the alert for a seeming rise in cases which could indicate an environmental or iatrogenic exposure to the parents or the child pre-birth. While ICWA supports early discovery of potential health issues in newborns, we are concerned these proposed tests could be used as smoke screens to hide root causes or as ‘customer acquisition’ tools that will result in highly medicated children.
Attend in Wenatchee or join online. And you can always send your comments in to sboh@boh.wa.gov before noon on Wednesday Oct. 4th to have the best chance for board members to read them.
On Thursday, October 12, the Seattle Truth Network is hosting a “Connect in Person” meeting on from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. at Razzi’s Pizzeria in Greenwood. Dinner and conversation will start at 6:00. The meeting will start at 7:00. The address is 8523 Greenwood Ave. North in Seattle.
And on Saturday, October 21, Informed Choice Washington is a sponsor of The Great Northwest Awakening, presented by Patriots United Washington, whose mission includes protecting medical freedom and elimination of vaccine mandates. Speakers, like Robert Scott Bell, will provide insight and actionable solutions to protect parental rights, health, election integrity, and ideas to work with legislators. Door prizes now include a chance to take home one of 200 MyPillows.